Wolf Rain (Psy-Changeling Trinity #3) - Nalini Singh Page 0,40

a physicality that compelled her to watch. “A cardinal empath will be waiting to assess you, offer you initial help.”

Memory stood her ground in the face of his push into her personal space—she understood a wolfish challenge when she saw it. It severely irritated her, however, that she had to tip back her head to continue to hold the aggressive eye contact. “Sascha Duncan?” No one with access to the comm could have avoided hearing about the cardinal’s defection. Not only was Sascha a cardinal, part of the most powerful and rare group of Psy in the world, she was the daughter of a Councilor.

Yet she’d dropped out of the PsyNet to mate with an alpha leopard—and had survived the disconnection.

“Yes,” Alexei confirmed, his energy wrapping around her like a wolf’s fur. As his arms had wrapped around her earlier.

She hungered for another taste of that wild warmth, the muscled heat of him making her feel like a cat herself. But asking to be held was outside her vocabulary, and it was a foolish thought anyway. She knew how she would end. In blood. Spiraling down into an abyss tenanted by monsters.

It was her oh-so-special “talent,” the thing that made her irresistible to Renault.

The “psychopath whisperer,” that was Memory.

Chapter 15

Pack is built on the bonds of family, of mating, of love.

—Hawke Snow

SIENNA STOOD HIDDEN in the trees that edged the clearing. Beside her stood multiple other packmates, all in wolf form. Everyone who’d been briefed on the discovery of the bunker knew the memories it’d awaken for Hawke, the pain it’d make fresh. So half of them had followed him up here, though he hadn’t asked. The other half would protect the den so Hawke could do this without worry about their vulnerable.

This was what it meant to be pack. Even their alpha never had to walk alone.

As Sienna and the wolves watched, Lucy put down her rucksack by the rugged and dusty all-wheel-drive SUV in which she and Sienna had driven up. “I’m going to run down,” the nurse told Alexei, her skin shimmering with the moisture deposited by rain so fine it was mist. “Tie the rucksack onto me once I’ve shifted. I want to make sure Lara gets the samples ASAP.”

The young woman stripped with the cheerful nonchalance of changelings, put her clothing in the back of the SUV, then shifted. Light shattered the mist, and soon a sleek dark-gray wolf stood in place of the lithe young woman with a healer’s hands. As she shook her pelt to settle it in place, the E who’d just circled the vehicle to get to the passenger side froze, her eyes on the wolf.

Sienna examined the woman with care. Her brother, Toby, had a secondary empathic ability, and she’d been around Sascha enough that she knew how Es felt. This woman . . . there was something both familiar and unfamiliar about her. Sienna was predisposed to like her for being a survivor. She’d been caged once, knew what it took to come out of it unbroken. But that the E didn’t feel like any E Sienna knew, it gave her pause.

“That’s Lucy,” Alexei told the E, an amused glint to his eyes that had Sienna switching focus. The young lieutenant had kissed her in front of Hawke at her mating ceremony, all teasing charm and gorgeous smile. Later that same night, he’d stolen her from her mate and swung her into a wicked dance.

All of it in play, in happiness for his alpha.

That Alexei had disappeared the day Brodie went rogue, the day Alexei lost the last living member of his immediate family. This was the first time Sienna had seen even a hint of the dangerous but playful Alexei she’d just begun to know before it all went to hell.

The woman with the vivacious burst of curls she’d tried to corral with two hair ties gave him a look so suspicious that the wolf beside Sienna opened its mouth in a predator’s laugh. “Lucy?” she asked the wolf afterward, in the careful tone of someone who thought they were the butt of a joke.

Padding over, Lucy brushed her body against the E’s legs. Her eyes widened, her lips parting on a soft gasp. “Lucy, you’re a wolf!”

Lucy bowed her back, legs out, before rising into a standing position so Alexei could tie her rucksack on her. Designed for wolves—in both forms—it came with the necessary straps. While he did that, the empath walked around both Alexei and